The question was qualified, the answer was brief and it's tough to imagine what would have happened had Bill Daly taken his other option, but the National Hockey League's deputy commissioner said on Wednesday — Day 95 of the NHL lockout — that he thinks there will be a season.

On Canada's HNIC Radio, journalist Elliotte Friedman closed an interview with Daly thusly: " 'I hope so' is not allowed to be an answer to this question, or 'want to believe so,' is not an answer to this question. Yes or no: Do we have a season?"

Is Bill Daly actually optimistic about an end to the NHL lockout? (AP Photo)

Daly's answer: "Yes."

There are a few ways to take that. One is that the league indeed believes an agreement is within reach. The other is that Daly was covering his bases and "negotiating in good faith," which is important, given that the situation is on the verge of entering the legal system, where that concept is key.

It's also worth noting that Daly didn't say he thought a deal was close. One doesn't need to be, really — in order to play a 48-game season, which commissioner Gary Bettman has set as the minimum, a collective bargaining agreement doesn't need to be done until mid-January. Daly confirmed that another round of games will be cancelled by week's end. If the league holds its pattern, that will take the schedule up to Jan. 14.

And, of course, that's the ballpark drop-dead date Daly gave. The league isn't going to set a firm deadline because of NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr's track record of waiting as long as possible to come to agreements

Other notes from Daly:

He said the league was open to a "different trade" in negotiations, which, right or wrong, is an attempt to put the ball back in the players' court after the league called off negotiations two weeks.

"There does need to be a reason to meet and given, I guess, where we are, somebody has to have a new idea or something new to put on the table to move the process along," he said.

"I think our view is, 'We've done as much as we can do. If you have a different idea or a different trade, even, on some of the issues we talked about two weeks ago, let's hear it.' "

And Daly continued saying that a deal isn't as close as Fehr implied, because the union took parts of a deal contingent on others and then asked for more. That's where the "different trade" comes back into play.

"When you don't get A, B and C," Daly said, "then X, Y and Z aren't there anymore, and you might have to re-trade those,"

Daly also noted that the players' proposed cap on escrow is a back door at getting more than 50 percent of hockey-related revenue, and defended owners who, in New York, told players that involving Fehr in those negotiations would be a deal-breaker.

Daly said owners thought players wanted to involve a larger number of union staff members — closer to 10-12 — and that played a part in their pseudo-warning, which can also be interpreted as an attempt to bypass Fehr and get players to agree on a deal without their union leader.

"The whole concept of the meeting was an owners/players-only meeting," Daly said. "(Asking to involve staff like Fehr was) fine. They have a right to do that. They didn't have an obligation to continue that or do it in the first place. But it doesn't mean that the owners want to continue in the format they proposed. And that was what was communicated to them."